1. Field of the Invention
Packaging containers for stick-on lenses which are suitable for point of purchase display thereof and which enable the testing of the stick-on lenses by a potential purchaser without removal of the lenses from the container in which packaged. Such packaging containers which make pilfering or theft more difficult and may be used as a convenient storage or carrying case.
2. Prior Art
There is no known prior art relating to packaging containers for stick-on lenses, much less which enable testing of the stick-on lenses by a potential user without removal of the lenses from the packaging container.
Recently stick-on lenses having considerable consumer appeal and market potential have been developed from aliphatic thermoplastics, so that aliphatic thermoplastic polyurethane press-on lenses and eyeglasses embodying the same are now or soon will be commercially available. These lenses are of optical clarity and can be adhered to base lenses, e.g., usual sunglass or other plano-type lenses, which themselves provide no correction but which may have normal built-in curvatures, by virtue of their autogenous or inherent adhesive properties. That is, adherence between the sunglass or other non-corrective lens and the stick-on lenses is effected by the molecular surface adhesion between the stick-on lens and the interior surface of the sunglass or other curved but in any event non-corrective lens to which adhered. Certain of these stick-on lenses are now projected to be available on the market shortly under the trademark "SUN-SIGHTS". These lenses may be extremely simple or more complex, but the most common are a reader or magnification type, which may for example have a built-in power of +1.0 d, all the way up to a +4.0 d, the "d" standing for diopters, and approximately +2.5 d being usual and generally satisfactory for incorporation into a reader-type lens by attachment of such a stick-on lens to the inner surface of a sunglass lens or other suitably curved plano lens.
Corrective lenses, for example for the correction of nearsightedness or myopia, are also available, and such lenses for the correction of nearsightedness or myopia representatively have a -2.00 diopter correction.
Bifocal lenses can also be provided and generally comprise an integral reader lens section attached at the lower portion of the base lens, plus an integral additional stick-on lens section thereabove, for example, a -1 diopter miopia-correction stick-on lens as a second power lens section, while the upper portion of the sunglass or other base lens is left uncorrected for adequate distance viewing. More complex lenses wherein the magnification or reader correction is representatively +3.75 diopters, a second meso or intermediate correction is +2.37 diopters, and an upper lens section provides a long range or distance correction of +1 diopter, are also possible. Moreover, reader or corrective stick-on lenses for suitably curved plano or sunglasses by inherent molecular surface adhesion may also be provided as separate as opposed to integral lenses for attaching to the base lens.
In any event, stick-on lenses are presently known and are or will soon be available commercially, so that some suitable packaging container, useful for point-of-purchase display thereof, and which may possibly also be used subsequently for storage thereof or as a carrying case therefor, are now of interest. The problem is a challenging one in view of the fact that stick-on lenses have not previously been marketed, at least not on any substantial commercial scale, so that not only adequate display of the stick-on lenses, but also some means of testing the same by the potential purchaser without removal of the stick-on lenses from the packaging container, and which would also make the stick-on lenses less likely to be pilfered or stolen, now becomes highly desirable and is accordingly provided by the present invention.
Suitable stick-on lenses, based upon poly-ether-based and poly-ester-based aliphatic thermoplastic polyurethanes, are known and are particularly suitable. Such are disclosed in greater detail, to the extent that the previous disclosure is not by itself fully adequate, in my prior-filed U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/163,678, filed Dec. 7, 1993, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein and by reference made a part hereof.